Amanda Todd: Cyber Bullying

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/10/amanda-todd-michael-brutsch-and-free-speech-online.html?mbid=gnep&google_editors_picks=true

Sorry, friends, I don't mean to bring you down...  but this was pretty painful... if you have a moment read the New Yorker article and watch Amanda Todd's video with its haunting, elegiac soundtrack while she all too casually flips her hand-written note cards.  It's more than merely painful knowing the truth of what is to come in her young life.  

How cruel we mortals can be, and how voracious for violence.  

Cruelty, alas, too often, thy name is us...  

Seeing how rapidly and practically unconsciously kids these days ('kids these days'...) post images and thoughts on FB or other social media sites, one wonders if they can even know how to press pause long enough to reflect on the long-term consequences or impact (much less perversions...) of these all-encompassing, all-knowing, ever-present, g-d-like internet universes.  

I doubt it.  

Are any of us that prescient or self-aware, especially when we are young, teenagers, a bit reckless, eager, excited or angry?  Probably not.  Yet with consequences beyond our mere imaginations...

Which is just to say: how do we guide our children and wards in this perpetually wired world so that they don't unconsciously wound or hurt themselves, much less wickedly damage or destroy others.  

Along with math and geography, these, no doubt, are some of the crucial, ineluctable, inevitable questions for these (our!) young souls growing up in a world that can be more unforgiving and cruel than they are ever really taught or can easily understand, alas.  

Naturally, I thought of the teachers and administrators I most regard at our local Lincoln School who understand well the risks and vulnerabilities of our children in this hyper-modern digital world.  Since so much of our beloved children's daily lives are in their wise, compassionate and observant hands.   

For those who know who they are, who help guide our kids at school in the ways of the world, as always, thanks for being there for our kids.  You do such a brilliant job in helping them become self-aware, compassionate, observant and kind-hearted young souls. 

As we know, they each, in their own way, need and deserve so much support and guidance in these often disorienting, stimulating yet fiercely challenging imagined cyber-worlds.

As if the normal, three dimensional one we knew as children wasn't already tough enough...

My apologies to my blogosphere cyber world here as  I'm sorry to bring this painful subject up on a lovely, fresh and crisp autumnal Friday morning.  

Blessings on you, Amanda Todd, the world lost you as you lost yourself in it.

I'm sorry...